s that all?" he drawled. "Thanks! It's enough, I should say. Johnny
Thompson exit." A wry grin was on his face. "Johnny Thompson killed by a
falling whale harpoon; shot to death by a whale gun; blown to atoms by a
whale bomb. Exit Johnny. They do it in the movies, I say!"

But that was not quite all. The blazing seal oil lamps had overturned.
Splinters from the floor were catching fire. Johnny busied himself at
beating these out. As soon as this had been accomplished, he stepped
outside.

From an awe-struck ring of native women and children, who had been
attracted by the explosion, the little Jap girl darted.

"Oh, Meester Thompsie!" she exclaimed, wringing her hands, "so terrible,
awful a catastrophe! Are you not killed? So terrible!"

Johnny grinned.

"Nope," he said, putting out a hand to console her. "I'm not killed, nor
even blown to pieces. What I'd like to know is, who dropped that
harpoon."

He looked from face to face of the silent circle. Not one showed a sign
of any knowledge of the affair. They had heard the explosion and had run
from their homes to see what had happened.

Turning toward the cliff, from which the harpoon had been dropped,
Johnny studied it carefully. No trace of living creature was to be
discovered there. Then he looked again at the circle of brown faces,
seeking any recent arrival. There was none.

"Come!" he said to the Jap girl.

Taking her hand, he led her from house to house of the village. Beyond
two to three old women, too badly crippled to walk, the houses were
found to contain no one.

"Well, one thing is sure," Johnny observed, "the Chukche reindeer
herders have not come. It was not they who did it."

"No," answered the Jap girl.

"Say!" exclaimed Johnny, in a tone more severe than he had ever used
with his companion, "why in thunder can't we get out of this hole? What
are we sticking here for?"

"Can't tell." The girl wrung her hands again. "Can't tell. Can't go,
that's all. You go; all right, mebby. Can't go my. That's all. Mebby go
to-morrow; mebby next day. Can't tell."

Johnny was half inclined to believe that she was in league with the
treachery which hung over the place, and had shown itself in the form of
loaded harpoons, but when he realized that she did not urge him to stay,
he found it impossible to suspect her.

"Well, anyway, darn it!"

"What?" she smiled.

"Oh, nothing," he growled, and turned away.

Two hours later Johnny was lying on the flat